Severance

There is much conflict in my soul.  Perhaps if I write this and really open up about what I feel and the final severance that I know must come I can survive; perhaps I will feel a little better.  

I have completely distanced myself from this country and this people emotionally except for a few members of my family.  I feel nothing anymore.  Zero. No sympathy, hate, disgust, nothing.  America is an untouchable, something whose fate, good or bad, is not a matter I care about an iota.  

I see myself not as a black American or even an African American, but only as an African now.  I am an African of the Diaspora. Years of outrage and insanity passed off as normal have taken the last bit of sympathy out of me.  As far as I'm concerned even though I was born here and am the holder of an American passport, I am not an American.  I don't and never really had a totally American spirit.  I have always been someone peculiarly foreign, almost what could be defined as an exile.  

I've made a joke to my mother that perhaps I was kidnapped as an infant and was given to her.  My parents were an African king and queen, and they have been looking for me ever since.  They're still out there somewhere roaming and looking.  Perhaps her baby was switched with me.  Perhaps her baby died.  I know this probably sounded cruel to my mother even though the statement was made in jest, but there is something peculiar about me that goes beyond this place.  

I was bullied a lot as a child, and I never have really gotten over it.  I go deep within myself at times.  Sometimes this sailing away into the void was depression, shyness, rage, sarcasm, or aloofness. Over the years it has taken many forms.  


I have started to weed out people in my life little by little whom I feel have no nobility of spirit or character.  I don't want dishonest people around me.   I don't want people around who lack dignity.  I don't want people around me who are selfish and can't sense anyone's pain.  I don't want materialistic people around me who are wedded more to their gadgets than they are to humanity.  I don't want the fake humanitarians and slaves to trends around me who are silent about the wars, but are loudly vocal about animal rights or the unborn.  This kind will rescue a dog from any of the various war zones this country has proliferated, but they could care less about the widow, orphan, elderly person lost, alone and whose everyday is a trial by fire.  I don't want people around me who toy at love and in every breath devalue that glorious word more and more.  I don't want people around me who disrespect me or any black woman.  I don't want people around me who hate the African, the greatest victim of so much prosecution, betrayal, and theft.  I don't want an racist around me of any color, but I want those who will tell it like it about the racism, imperialism, and satanism that is really pushing this world over a cliff.   If you are petty or secretly crude or cruel move off from me.  If love is a game for you and breaking hearts, you need to go where your kind is welcomed.  I don't clean up people's excrement for them.  A lot of people feel their only role in life is to cover their own and other people's excrement.  That is for the servant kind, and I am not that kind of servant.  My honor comes first.  


My profession, teaching, has been spat on and defecated in this country by parents, children, and politicians,  and teachers and other people in the education field have been reduced to the level of masochists just to stay in some thing which will help pay their mortgage and keep them from ending up under a bridge. How does that make me feel?  I am beyond sadness and anger at this point. 

I wish so much that more black people in this country could have used our martyrs Dr. King and Malcolm X as models for dignity, strength, and truth.  I wish we had done all we could to learn about all the African greats that have given their lives and blood for Africa and wanted to see the Pan-African tree grow and burst into bloom. 


America hasn't earned my respect.  You can't just say you're the greatest and expect people with a higher mind to not look at your actions.  I'm sorry, but I can't be blind.  Perhaps that is my great fault living in such a society and world.   I can't allow myself to feel fully comfortable in such a twisted place of racism, naked materialism, a place that is a launching pad for war against humanity and the human spirit.


I never wanted to live and see black people to fall into so much degradation. I didn't care so much what happened to the rest of the society, but for us to fall has been more than I can bear.  I was looking at an article today about young black girls making pregnancy pacts.  This is what segments of us are producing as we look away to small and meaningless things.  We have lost everything, and I don't know if we will ever be capable of recovering ourselves. 

If America was teachable...  If America had not harden its' heart like Pharaoh, but there was always a hardness there.  Look at the history of this place.  

For me it is over.  I have thrown up my hands. The severance.

A Black Shia Muslim Convert Speaks

I was looking at this latest interview yesterday from independent journalist 108Morris108.  As always I enjoy his interviews because he seeks out intelligent people connected to the source of a situation, ideology, or conflict.   

Sheikh Ahmed Haneef, who is interviewed in this video, is unique not because he is a black convert to orthodox Islam but because he is a Shia who studied in Qum, Iran. He was once a Sunni Muslim.  I really enjoyed this interview because he covered very well in a short period a number of topics from the affects of slavery on blacks to the ideology of Shiism to consumerism and its affects on youth. 

I also recommend more of 108Morris108's interviews with various people from Libya, Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan and others including some Americans who think outside the box. The link to his YouTube channel is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/108morris108. You don't have to agree with all the ideas on his channel, because I don't with everything either.  Some videos are not of interest to me, but most are. I just think it's good to expand the mind at least a little.

Two Short Stories of Two Strong Men

I love stories.  Good stories have a lot of power if we open our minds and hearts to them.  People who think past the shallows love good stories with meaning and lessons that replicate real life.  In the last few days I have been exposed to two stories of two strong men.  One of the strong men I knew personally.  The other I did not.  One was a devout Christian.  The other was a devout Muslim and was briefly the leader of an African country when I was a very little girl.  These two strong men were my grandfather J.C. and the other was Ahmed Ben Bella.  My grandfather died in 1987, we believe at the age of 72.  He was never really sure of his birth date. My grandfather was a farmer and carpenter.  Ahmed Ben Bella died last week at age 93.  He helped in the liberation of his country, Algeria, from over a century of French colonial rule, and he was the first president of Algeria from 1963 to 1965 when he was overthrown.  He spent over 2 decades in prison, went into exile in Europe, and later came back to his homeland and functioned as an elder statesman.  He was respected not only in Arab but also in African countries as a freedom fighter and liberator.  

These two men both experienced discrimination.  My grandfather was biracial.  He was illiterate, but he knew how to survive.  Racial discrimination was a fully open and accepted way of life when he was growing up and into his adult years.  Ahmed Ben Bella saw discrimination at school from one of his teachers who was biased against the students because they were Muslim and Arab. One African I follow on Twitter said the other day that Ahmed Ben Bella had "more than nine lives."  He was the ultimate survivor.   

I've read some of the things that Ahmed Ben Bella said and like my granddad he was unafraid to speak the truth and stand up for what is right.  I remember my grandfather as a very quiet man who spoke slowly with a old fashioned black southern brogue.  He went to church regularly, and he and my grandmother both believed in helping others and providing hospitality to both blacks and whites.  Before I was born and my mother was a girl, my grandfather had a rebellious streak.  He did not tolerate being taken advantage of from his white employers.  Perhaps he got away with what he did because he looked more or less white.  My mother told me a story this weekend about an incident.  He had done work for some white people.  When it was time to eat, he was told they would give him a meal, but he would have to eat it outside.  Granddaddy responded audaciously that he had a kitchen, chairs, a table, and a wife who could cook him some food; he got in his car and left.  

Mom said they often worried that my granddad would get into serious trouble one day for speaking his mind, but he never did. It was the American South under Jim Crow, and he could have been attacked or killed for being blunt to white people.  By the time I knew my granddad he had mellowed.  But I understand more and more now the source of my own outspokenness, but mine has arrived later in life. My outspokenness comes from not only dad and sometimes even mom, but also my grandfather.  We are as proud as some Eastern peoples from ancient cultures, and we don't take humiliation and disrespect lightly.

A few days after Ahmed Ben Bella's death, I found an interview he'd done about twelve years ago for an Egyptian newspaper.   I was fascinated by the story of how he met his wife.  He was single when he had briefly been president.  He didn't marry until he was middle aged and was in prison.  Ahmed Ben Bella's mother was very concerned that he was still single.  He said in the interview that he had resigned himself to remaining unmarried because his life was devoted to the liberation struggle.  Later he was married, I read in another newspaper, by proxy.  A young female journalist who had visited him in jail decided she would marry him. They wed after seeing each other only three times.  It must have been love at first sight.  Yes, I'm still a romantic a heart, but I reside in a tough world, and I'm also a black woman in America, and at my age I have no illusions left... 

I thought it was so heartwarming the devotion of Ahmed Ben Bella's wife, joining her husband in prison.  There are very few people in this culture now who will stick by each other through thick and thin.  The few who still get married have eliminated the old phrases out of the marriage vows, and not much is left now. 

I read in another online paper in an obituary that Ahmed Ben Bella's wife was taken from the prison to have a baby in a hospital, but she miscarried.  When she was brought back to join her husband she had a day old abandoned infant girl with her.  Later the couple adopted a handicapped child.  I was really affected by the compassion of these two people taking two kids whom no one else probably wanted.  Ahmed Ben Bella said his daughter spent her first seven years in prison with him and his wife.  His wife was permitted to leave the prison to visit her family from time to time, but she was devoted to sharing his hardship and isolation with him. 

These two stories that I learned about in the last week are wonderful in their own ways. I wanted to tell them because I hope that whomever reads this will think.  I try to help people to think.  A good writer doesn't put down every little detail. There should be gaps, mysteries which make one wonder.  I ask questions to jar people's hearts sometimes.  I know many hate to think, but thinking and more than just thinking on a base level is important.  Deep thinking is very important.  Deep thinking leads to not only knowledge but also character, and it is never too late to increase knowledge and develop a good character.  

Even though my grandfather looked white, he identified fully with other blacks no matter what their hue was.  He always considered himself a black man.  He identified with the oppressed.  

I love these words of Ahmed Ben Bella which really state where his identity lay,  "I am Muslim first, Arab second and then Algerian. I am also proud to be an African."  

I too will always identify with the those who are strong in overcoming the perilous portions of life and the oppressed no matter where they are.   Since things will never be fully just in the country where I live,  I identify myself as an African. Africa was the first region (Turkey was second) where I first felt full acceptance and welcome, and I will always feel a gratefulness to Africans and an extreme fondness.

In Town, Turkish Writer Mustafa Akyol

A photo I took of Mustafa Akyol at the lecture

I was invited to go to a lecture by Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol at my old university week before last.  Basically I only knew of him by name through a couple of blogs I used to read.  I haven't read his book or even his writings on his website.  I mentioned on Twitter that he was coming here, that I hoped to go, but that I knew nothing of what his ideology is. Then one of my Turkish followers Tweeted in my direction, 'He's against evolution theory, supports ID. He supports democracy, sharia law and jihad, but is against Islamic extremism.'  I had to look up what ID was an abbreviation for and recalled once I found it that I'd seen it before, "intelligent design."  I didn't know the details of the meaning of the term, but I was aware that it referred to a theory of creationism.   I am familiar with creationism as taught by the Bible, which is the only theory of it that I've had any real in-depth exposure to.  I've never believed in evolution, so there was no conflict there.  As for sharia law and jihad, my reaction to those words were not tempered by the usual Western panic.  I have studied enough about Islam and sharia in a general sort of way to know they are not what the average American thinks they are.  So I decided to keep my plans of seeing what Mustafa Akyol was going to talk about.

Mustafa Akyol's lecture was an hour long, and he basically gave a brief history of the Middle East in the last century after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.  The conflict between secularists and Islamists were also talked about.  He said that most of the Arab governments that became independent from European colonialism after the collapse of the Ottomans were secular.  According to him, for years the secularists had oppressed the Islamists, so he claimed that one of the reasons for the Arab Spring was due to years of strong arm tactics that leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi had used. He really didn't say very much about Libya, and I can understand why, but still I wish he had.  What has gone down in Libya has become a blot on the entire so-called Arab Spring.  I follow some people in the Middle East and others with origins there along with some Africans, and the ones I follow were skeptical at the beginning of the Libyan conflict, and after it became so outrageously bloody they have expressed disgust. Perhaps two months into these revolutions I had also become skeptical and was suspicious of forces both inside and outside the region that were trying to propel these revolutions.  What happened in  Libya was no doubt a counter revolution.  I was appalled and sickened by what went down in Libya from the beginning when it became obvious that networks like Al Jazeera and CNN were siding with the rebels and trying to sway public opinion.  Already there were stories of how racist these rebels were raping and killing black Libyans and black migrants. There was early evidence of their brutality on YouTube.  Neither the huge demonstrations in support of the Jamahiriya (Green Libyan government) were ever shown on TV.  They could only be seen online.  

Mustafa Akyol said that he was hopeful for Tunisia out of the entire group, however.  He said absolutely nothing about Bahrain or Yemen, which I also found disappointing.  There was little said about Syria.  

I told my Turkish friends I agreed with ninety to ninety-five percentage of what he talked about, but now that I've had over a week to reflect, I would say I now feel that a lot of questions were not answered.  No doubt Mustafa Akyol is a good speaker to listen to, but I feel too many pieces to the puzzle were not interlocked.  He said that he agreed with some but not all of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.  I don't know whether to be alarmed by that or not since I don't know enough about that particular movement.  I am alarmed that he seems to still feel favorable towards Obama and said he likes Obama's tactic of "leading from behind" which was first heard in regards to Libya. I think "leading from behind" is just a new phrase for Dick Cheney's "going to the dark side."  I never bought into the US was only providing England and France with "moral" support."  The US had a major hand in attacking and destroying parts of Libya and disrupting the country.  I believe Gaddafi was the chief target from the beginning and that the next step was to loot the coffers of that country.   I had lost what respect I had for Obama when he refused to have people from the previous administration prosecuted for war crimes.  After Libya, what little if any respect I had was dead and gone.

There was a question and answer session after the lecture, and I was tempted to ask Mustafa Akyol "Sir, are you a neo-Ottomanist?"  I have suspicions that he might be to a slight degree.  All these governments that have dipped their hands in the so-called Arab Spring are jockeying for power, no matter all the slogans and propaganda that they hide behind. The US and EU are on their last leg of 500 years of global domination, both societies and economies are in moral and financial disarray, and they will not go quietly.  Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar fear Iran and want to be powerhouses.  Iran has quietly become a regional power and the US and many Arab states don't like this.  Turkey has been told it is a model for the region in various quarters and is acting on such praise, but even Mustafa Akyol doesn't completely agree with that idea.  He confessed that all is not well with Turkey either.  

There were a number of questions in my head, but I felt a little shy about speaking out in such a large group where I didn't know most of the people.  There was a book signing afterwards of his book Islam Without Extremes,  but I didn't buy a copy.  Perhaps I will read it in the future.   I was glad I got an opportunity, however, to see this writer speak, but there is much more I need to learn.

An Excerpt From Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book

I was supposed to be finishing up the first draft of an article I will be submitting to a magazine.  I'm close to finishing, but I couldn't help myself.  I hadn't posted anything on this blog for close to a month, and I might not have time to write here again until another month from now.  I decided I wanted to post a brief excerpt from my copy of Sei Shonagon's millennium old text The Pillow Book.  My copy came in the mail about a week after I began this blog.  I've only skimmed some of the book.  Besides writing short descriptive pieces of things in her life and in Japan 1000 years ago, Sei Shonagon wrote down a lot of lists. She seems to have been a finicky, but poetic and honest lady, someone I would enjoy chatting with over a cup of tea or coffee or whatever the drink of choice was in her day, as long as it didn't contain alcohol.  I don't drink alcohol.  

I was just looking through her book trying to relocate a description she wrote of the emperor gathering his friends at night and playing his favorite musical instrument for them.  She claims listening to him play at night was quite pleasant.  Hopefully she wasn't being sycophantic, but from the little I have skimmed, she probably wasn't or at least not completely. 

Here is one of her lists, an excerpt from her book, as translated by Ivan Morris.  I like her lists because they give a hint about her personality, skills of observation, and her poetic spirit.

Elegant Things
A white coat worn over a violet waistcoat.
Duck eggs.
Shaved ice mixed with liana* syrup and put in a new silver bowl.
A rosary of rock crystal.
Wistaria blossoms.  Plum blossoms covered with snow.
A pretty child eating strawberries.

*The leaves and stems from the liana vine were used as a sweetener before the introduction of sugar to Japan, according to the notes in Ivan Morris' translation of Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book. 

My Old Car and Some Saved Lives

Today I went to have my car checked out for some possible problems; I was hoping that whatever was wrong was not a serious or expensive problem.  I hate debt. I don't need anymore debt.  I fear debt.  Now that perhaps sounds un-American, but a lot of what I say and my views don't jibe with the standard outlook in this country.  I'm a pragmatist, not really an optimist.  I do not have the "I think something therefore it is  because I want it to be that way" belief system.  I look at all the possibilities beforehand so as not to be overly disappointed; I confess I do take the pessimistic view first.  If all goes well, I give silent thanks to God and wait for the next crisis and disappointment.  

No, from what I've read and heard, many of my fellow countrymen and women don't see things that way.  I guess I'm more Eastern in my outlook, some what. I'm a realist. I've had a hard time (not as hard as many millions), but to me and when I was experiencing all the bad, it was blatantly hard, difficult, etc., if you will.  I know my hurts and my feeling.  I can't be in denial.  That's just how I am.  I can't deny my attitudes, good or bad; I know my own shortcomings.  Someone once said or wrote, "Know thyself." To my own self I try to be true, except when I'm procrastinating, which is a habit I've working on to alleviate before I face disaster.

Well, late this morning I went to Tires Plus which is a car service company which not only sells tires, but does car repairs.  Yesterday after coming back from a brief out of town trip with my mom and a Turkish friend to see some of my relatives who live far out in the rural, when I had gotten about two miles from home, my car switched off at the traffic light on one of the major highways in town.  I was terrified.  My car had never shut off before.  There were cars behind me and beside me when the light changed from red to green, and my car had gone silent.  Fortunately, I was not so panicky that I didn't think fast. I turned on my emergency lights. Then  I put my car in park, put on the emergency brake, and then re-cranked it.  It started back immediately, and mom and I went on our way.  

I was uneasy following that incident.  I mulled about whether something was seriously wrong with my car's engine.  On the dashboard I had noticed when I re-cranked my car that the symbol that looks like an oil can with a drop of oil coming out of it lit up.  I know almost nil about cars.  I got out out my car manual yesterday right after I got home.  I even checked online, but just as when I don't feel well, I didn't want to speculate or try to make a diagnosis of what might be wrong.  I decided to go to the professionals to find out the truth even if I had to pay $1500.  It turned out this morning that the problem was minor.  Carbon had gotten on some part under the hood (I can't recall the part) and they had to clean it.  Also there was come corrosion on or near my battery, and they took care of that as well.  In the end I was charged less than $100.  

The repair guys were impressed by my 12 year old car.  They had checked the computer system, and there were no problems.  I just gotten an oil change less than 2 months ago. I bought my car new in 2001 right after I'd had a minor accident in the same model car that was also new.    In the accident the front axial of my car had been broken, so I was told it would just be cheaper to get a new model.  My insurance allowed it.  

My present car looks kind of beat up, but it only has a little over 51,000 miles on it.  It sails down the road.  Even though I'm a good defensive driver, and I have an excellent driving record of no speeding tickets, etc., (my last parking ticket was over 20 years ago when I was a university student), I don't enjoy driving.  I never miss my car when I'm working and living abroad.  I loved riding the bus in Turkey. I enjoyed to be in the midst of humanity instead of isolated and insulated in my own little box on wheels.  There were times when men would get up and offer me their seat, some older people would offer me some of their snack, or a someone would strike up a conversation with me. I loved riding on the ferry across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul.  I enjoyed riding on the bus from the town where I was teaching in Botswana in the early 90s to the capital city.  Those long rides, views of semi-desert, low mountains, the women with their babies, the hawkers of chips (french fries) that got on the bus...  I remember being invited to cram myself into a mini-van with 14 or 15 people in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana.  "Come on! Come on!"  They'd smile and beckon, and some lady wouldn't mind even if I had to sit on her lap.  Everyone understood that the driver wanted to make as much money as possible. Sometimes I think of some funny lines from a book I read some number of years ago called 
 The Demonic Comedy and a character says, "I live in air-conditioned box.... I drive to work in air-conditioned box.  I work in air-conditioned box.  I come home to air-conditioned box.  A rat he live better." 

But I'm rambling.  I've seriously looked at the correlation to how much people drive and the wars in the last decade.  I was never was an excessive driver, since I don't love driving and my identity is not wrapped up in my vehicle.  There are complex reasons for the wars this country is in, and one of the many reasons is control of the world's oil and natural resources.  It's not about they hate us for our freedoms. That's shallow propaganda. It's not about we have to save them from that evil dictator.  They aren't saved when the military blasts its way in.  I just don't buy the humanitarian war rationalization either.  

But one reason and problem is we are gluttons for their oil and other resources.  I have come to realize from my research, listening to scholars and independent journalists on the subject, not mainstream media TV personalities, ex-CIA, and colonels and generals, that like the Spanish empire that was a glutton for gold four or five centuries ago, like the Africa slave trade that enriched so many in the Americas, a lot of it boils down to having enough oil and resources to keep the American economy functioning and making a small class of people obscenely rich.  I realize that if I drive less, that means someone might not get bombed so quickly in the long run.  It's just a tiny hope. I just try to do my part, not add to the problem.  

I don't want to contribute to anyone's destruction if I can help it.  It's the same for gadgets and other items that many hold dear. Research coltan and other minerals which go into the making of our computers and other gadgets and how people in parts of sub-Saharan Africa are mining and suffering so we can past the time or communicate with people we know or don't know, play games, do business, etc.  Read about the cocoa/chocolate industry and child slave labor in places like the Ivory Coast.  The Ivory Coast was invaded last year by UN and French troops, and the elected president was overthrown. Do research and develop some critical thinking skills.  I love chocolate, but it's fattening.  I limit eating it even more now since some kids in the Ivory Coast might be kept out of school and beaten so they can gather cocoa and chocolate companies in the US and Europe profit from it.  

I care about people who suffer.  I love the oppressed, not the bigwigs that many people look up to and are told are the pinnacle of success.  The oppressed doesn't have to be related to me and mine for me not to want to add to their suffering.  Those guys at Tires Plus who praised the fact that my car was like new under the hood had no idea of how I feel about my beat up car and now why I drive less and less.  Driving is not my hobby.  When I go somewhere I'm not just out to be out there.  I'm going to a destination.  I feel I have a duty to not add so much to others' demise or suffering, so I don't drive so much, and I'm keeping my 12 year old car as long as I can.  

Musings and A Little Food for Thought

*****If things were the way I wanted I would go back into teaching here again, get re-certified.  Last week I really saw that kids need me, but I can't cure the social and familial ills of this country.  I can’t make people respect and revere learning and the profession I worked hard to get into and is now displaced out of because after two years of teaching, two years of disrespect, racism, and little support from the principal of my school, I gave up, was burnt out, angry, extremely hurt, and said never again.  I'm not big enough to cure the problems of this place. 

Last Monday at the non-traditional high school which is just a prelude to prison (police walking the halls, age group of students 16-25, thug attire, an occasional pregnant teen), some of the students told me they wished I was their teacher because I'm "laid-back".  I’ve never thought of myself as laid-back, perhaps high-strung, but... Maybe I am mellowing out a little as I get older.  I will be 50 next month. 

Tuesday I was checking myself in at the start of the day at an elementary school, and someone tapped me on the shoulder.  I turned, and it was a big girl who was a school patrol.  I must have been in one of her classes before because she reached out to me and hugged me and then promptly left.  The  afternoon of the same day after I'd made sure the group of second graders I taught that day were on their correct buses to go home, I was walking back inside and first a tiny boy and then a little girl who were going to their buses also came up to me and hugged me and promptly went off to their buses. 

Before I allowed my certification to lapse years back, the lowest grades I was certified to teach were 4th  grade to 6^th (middle grades) then on to the 7^th to the 12th in Social Studies and English only.  I faced a lot as a young teacher and had little support. I gave up.  Later I got a lot of satisfaction teaching abroad first in an African country, Botswana, and in Turkey.  The family structures were more intact in these countries than here.  There was a big difference in attitudes towards discipline and respect of teachers, things that have been cast aside here.  African-American kids are my biggest concern because they have been hit hardest by a society decaying on every level.  I wish I could be there for them, but my health and lack of patience won’t allow me.

*****Just a dream:  I want to be a queen and have my own Utopian kingdom.  LOL!  I would be a benevolent monarch.  I would make sure my people got the best education and health care.  Everyone would have what they need, and crafts and creativity would be encouraged along with stable marriages and families which are the backbone of any well-functioning society.  I have been called "Queen" a few times on Twitter by other African Americans. Flattered.  

 The above was inspired by when I came home last night from a discussion that I was leading at my old university.  I got home and turned on the TV briefly. Tavis Smiley was interviewing an African lady dressed as an African king.  It was Queen Peggy.  Read her inspiring and surprising story here:  King Peggy: A Cinderella Story--With a Twist   King Peggy is not a complete anomaly.  Africa has had at least one female ruler that lived as a king. She was the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatchepsut, and for those in denial about it, Egypt is in Africa. I know my map, and I won’t allow myself to be brainwashed and browbeaten into believing European or American propaganda that it is not. 

*****I suddenly recalled this yesterday and thought I'd mention it.  A few years ago I told some students very briefly of my adventures teaching English in Turkey.  I showed them a photo of a portion of the Istanbul skyline along the Bosphorus, and a couple of them said, “Disneyland!”  I guess in a way beloved Istanbul, the only city on two continents, Rome in the East, does look like a fantasy. 

*****I’ve known about Kshar’s cooking blog for some time.  He teaches Persian cooking, recites poetry in Farsi, and also teaches about flower arrangements.  I don’t know a lot about Persian/Iranian foods, but I see some similarities to Turkish cuisine, but I also believe Persian recipes are even more complex than the Turkish.  I do some Turkish cooking when I can.  I had an Iranian friend here in town, but she moved, and the times I visited her home, she had kept her country’s tradition of great food.  She was an older woman close to my mom’s age, and had fled Iran with her husband and children after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.  I was fascinated by the beauty and colors of the meals she presented to her guests.  I see the same and more with Kshar’s creations: 

Kshar's food photos

*****Some people might think I’m solely into art, poetry, literature, Eastern and African cultures, but I’m also interested in issues right here at home with my own people.  The previous help me only escape for a little while from thinking about those who are destroyed or doomed and are not even aware of it.  Yes, I’ve had far more friendships with foreign people than people here at home over the years, and in the last few years my closest friendships have been with Turkish people.  I’ve always felt like a foreigner in this country.  It’s very dismal and tragic with a lot of African Americans, a lot of horrors.  Some of what is happening to us is the nature of the society we live in, and also many of our ills are self-inflicted.  We live in a lot of denial as a people.  I believe that if you have nothing else in life, try to have God in your life, a good education, dignity, and self-respect.  All of that in the end will mold you into a person with morals and high standards.  Never shoot for mediocrity. Most people do.  Western culture is encouraging it more and more.  

Week before last I saw this lecture at a black bookstore in Philadelphia by Dr. Umar Abdullah Muhammad, Intellectual Insurrection: From Public Schools to Prison.  I agree with him on about 95% of what he says.  This is a must see for African-Americans and anyone else who is interested in learning about the catastrophes that have hit our community since the death of Dr. King.  Ignore the title.  There is no big focus on Professor Griff on here. Start at about 4:44 just before Dr. Muhammad comes on.

*****Concluding this week’s post, my cousin’s half-sister posted on Facebook this video that honors Whitney Houston.  I thought it was kind of beautiful, but I have no desire to visit Dubai.  Places that are intensely artificial are not to my taste.